Buffelspoort & Cradle of Humankind

BUFFELSPOORT - STERKFONTIEN CAVES - MAROPENG - WARMBATHS
SATURDAY 25TH MAY - MONDAY 27TH MAY
MONDAY  27^TH MAY

LAUREN:After leaving the Allen’s  we headed to the Sterkfontein Caves where we did a guided tour of the caves. The guide we had was awesome, informative & really funny. We then walked up the stairs to the outside where we got a photo with the Dr Robert Broom statue and walked to where the excavation site of Mrs Ples was. In the caves there is an underground lake that some Wits diving students came to explore. The deepest they could go was 40 metres & still hadn’t touched the bottom. They went along the caves for a couple of kilometers but could still not find the source. Unfortunately one of the divers rope snapped & he did not make it back. After placing a certain type of dye  in the,”cave lake” it showed up about 70km away.

From the caves we went to Maropeng Exhibition Centre, it is really worth a visit and there was a lot to take in. First we walked through the exhibition and then you head underground to go on an underground river on tubes through the evolution of the age. From Ice Age to fire. After this there is another exhibition underground where you can telephone extinct animals and find out more about them e.g. dodo, mammoth.

When we had finished at Maropeng and the Cradle of Humankind we headed to Warmbaths. After we set up we headed for the supertubes and  outside hot pools. We had an early supper at Panarottis at Warmbaths and then went to the inside pools for a swim before heading back to campsite for an early night as we were heading to Botswana early in the morning.

MITCH: Sterkfontein Caves and Warm Baths 28 May

Today we went to Sterkfontein Caves. The Sterkfontien caves are a world heritage site and famous for two discoveries: Little Foot by Ron Clark and Phillip Tobias and Mrs (Mr) Ples by Dr Robert Broom my great, great grandfather. Little Foot the most important discovery in the world because they found a almost complete body very close together. We also went on a tour in the Caves. We learned about Stalagmites and stalagtitest. Stalagmite is the rock on the bottom and Stalagtite is on the top. A way to remember it is termites are on the ground and you have to grip tight to climb. In one of the chambers there were rocks in the shapes of animals. After that we went to Maropeng museum. It has an under ground museum. We went down a moving  passage were you get dizzy and we also went on a boat and we went through all the stages of water. In the museum there was a place where we could call animals. I called a dodo. After that we left for warm baths. When we arrived we went for a swim.

BRYCE:MONDAY 27/5/2013

Today we went to Sterkfontein Caves. They used to be mined for lime stone and are now a national heritage site. Little foot was found in Sterkfontein Caves and is the most importent discovery in the world because it was the most full body ever found. Mrs/mr Ples which was found by my great great grandfather Dr Robet Broom was also found around the Sterkfontein Caves. It was a skull that had both human and ape features. We went into the caves and here are some of the things we learned. We learned that pillars are formed when stalagmites meet with stalagtites. A stalagtite rock that forms from the roof down and is formed by acid rain and the cemicals in the rock, when they drip down they dry and form rock. Because there is not much wind in the caves it takes a while to dry which means that some of the water that dosn't dry up falls diectly down and starts to form a stalagmite which grows from the ground up. It takes a couple of hundred years to form a pillar. After this we went to Maropeng. Our guides name was Norman he took us from the past to the present, we first looked at the outside displays & then took us inside where we went on an under ground boat trip. We went through the underground caves on a tube on a type of rapid. It was very exciting. After this we left for Warmbaths. We were so happy because we could go on the super tubes was lots of fun and we would race each other.